Wild bee populations are collapsing worldwide due to habitat loss, pesticides, and disease, threatening both ecosystem function and global food production.
While individual bee sentience is debated, bees show learning, memory, and evidence of pessimistic cognitive bias under stress — a possible marker of negative emotional states. Colony-level suffering from pesticide exposure includes disorientation, inability to return to the nest, starvation, and larval death. Even setting aside individual sentience, the ecosystem collapse caused by losing wild bees creates immense suffering for all animals dependent on the plants they pollinate.